Failure2 Sket~ :D :D

Assalamualaikum J

I have always wanted to tell my students every time they complained about their low marks I gave them this:

“I want to let you experience failure for I believe that to be a very good experience. You should never expect your success rate to be 100% in your every attempt in whatever you’re doing in your life. I have no problem whatsoever in failing you. I do believe that you will at some point of your life fail in doing something. It’s the experience of how to handle failure is important. You can do your best in everything, but not everything is what you’re expected them to become. I think school is the best place to experience failure. There are no real consequences, just raw emotion of failing at something. You should experience failure so you know how it feels to fail, so you would try your best not to fail, and even if you do, you know how to handle failure. Failure should be celebrated as the norms of life. Life is full of risk. Experience teaches us what risk should be taken and which should be avoided. Calculated risk is not the same as pure gamble of luck. You should expect to fail, then only you would prepare to face your failure, if failure awaits. Failure is one way of telling that you’re not going the right direction. Fail now so you won’t fail when it matters the most, even if you do, you know how to handle them. As people say, prepare your best, expect the worst.”

I know this sounds a little (little??) preachy and dramatic. That’s why I wrote it here instead of telling this to my students. I’m not good at telling this verbally, I would die laughing instead, hehe.

If you call me ‘cikgu’ and you’re reading up to this paragraph, mark this post somewhere in your little fat between your ears.

Just sharing my 2cents

Cheers :D :D

p/s : I am a cruel teacher..wahaha

Ngaja2 Sket~ :D :D

Assalamualaikum J

When I was still in my university years, I used to think about what’s the best way to teach physics to my future students. When I was interviewed by MARA, I told them personally that the best way to teach students physics is to let the students ‘feel’ physics. Let them explore and let them learn from their mistakes and show them how physics is one of the knowledge that give them the space to be creative and try to explain the universe and how it works. Ideally I planned an environment where the students are free to dig the subject, plan their own experiments, and ultimately have the ability to deduce. It doesn’t have to be the right explanation, as long they’re comfortable to share and discuss their ideas, that’ll be just fine. I’d like to make an environment where the students feel safe to pour their thoughts in my class. Where their views are respected and sharing ideas is one of the main elements in my teaching.

How my ideals were quickly crushed, well, not crushed but I quickly realized the challenges, when I started my career as a teacher. I have learnt physics much that I have immersed myself into an ideal world. Just a quick explanation, in physics, we deal mostly in a controlled environment. I could do the stuff I want in my 1^st paragraph of this post, but I have to celebrate the fact that I need to appreciate the external factors that influence my teaching profession. One of the factors I left out from my equation of teaching students physics was time. At the end of the day, I have to prepare my students for their exams, which will prepare them for their SPM. I have to complete the syllabus in time no matter what. We could argue about the exam-oriented policies all we want, but that’s not my main point right now.

Another factor which I regret taking out is the students’ understanding of the subject. I assume the students will all understand the things I say to them the first time they hear them. How easy I forgot how I was as well a student who didn’t have a clue on what’s my teacher’s blabbing in front. I have as well need to take into my consideration that for example in a class of 25 students, there will be students who are quite advanced in their understanding of the topic that it’ll bore them to death if I reduce my pace to cater the students who have difficulties in understanding physics. Not that I feel the students who are quite slow in understanding my teachings to be a burden to me, rather I find those students to be the most interesting as I was in their shoes when I was at school and I’d like to see the happiness in their faces when they finally grab the concepts I wasted (invest maybe?) my saliva on to explain in my class. As I pay my attention to this type of students, the advanced should never be discriminated upon. That’s the challenge. We’re are not at all the same, and I have to give my attention to everyone in my limited space of time, and my physical being, as one man.

* sometimes I do think teaching as an art. Both an art to convince people and to make your audience understand what you’re ‘selling’ and an art of producing this:-

Basically, that’s how the world runs. We can plan all we want, but the randomness still there. The best we could do is to consider as many circumstances as we can and plan on how to tackle the situations. At the end, I’m a human being who could never estimate everything the chaotic world throws at me. It’ll be tiring and sometimes not worth the time spent. That’s why to me personally, the planning is not everything, the way we handle the issue when it arises is also important. That’s something we can brush on. It’s a skill that comes from experience, sometimes from the experience of others. Problems are not to be ignored, they have to be faced. We won’t get full if we don’t eat, as well we won’t have experience if we don’t face our problems.

Tu dia ayat :D :D

Just sharing my 20 shared-by-10-students cents

Cheers :D :D

What to Love :D :D

Assalamualaikum J

I listened to this song by Lo, “Operator”, while I was driving one day. I used to not to listen very well to the song but 1 part of the song really spoke to me that day. The song was about a guy who fell in love with a girl, but somehow she changed and he couldn’t really accept the changes in her, as the lyrics suggest “…you broke all the was inside me..”.

Question is what is really there to love?

I used to think about this when I, as a normal human being had a crush on someone, which was years ago (2 days before the dinosaurs extinct to be exact, and still the most bitter way of understanding the world I ever had..). I liked this girl very much that someday I thought about what’s in her that I really want, that I really want to be connected to? Sometimes love is not something you can control. It just happens. The Sun is not something we can control of its existence, it’s just there for us to utilize once we realized how to use the energy released by it, so does love.

If we love someone for his/her attitude, well, that’s not going to last, as people do change. If we love someone for his/her beauty, well, that will never going to last as well, as our definition of beauty will change, same goes for wealth, intelligence, and so on. So what is there to love? What is love? Why are we ‘burdened’ with this uninvited ‘guest’? When I say burdened, it is a burden both when your love is not accepted and even when your love is warmly welcomed by the other party; they’re both heavy for the unprepared.

People say to love for Allah. This is my way of loving for Allah. This might sound stupid, but, it’s how I picture it. Whenever I liked someone for example, I used to draw this line of me connecting to this person and the line continues to Allah. (Pardon the quality of the drawing, super amateur in action).

When I have this mental picture of loving for Allah, one of the advantages is I realized that everything is from Allah, and everything is for Allah. Even if we met the person we truly love, and we’re not the only ones feeling that, and we managed to somehow live with that person, as mortals, we must prepare for the loss of our loved ones (that if we’re not the one answering Allah’s call first). When I have this mental picture of loving for Allah, I know that ultimately, the person I love the most is His, and that person would forever be His, and He borrowed me the pleasure of knowing and living together with this person. Love is not like Hindustan movies. I will try my best not to be bound by love. I will try my best to remind myself that ultimately, only Allah is the one who’ll be there, whenever, wherever, and whatever. The love he borrows, only as a tool to perfect us as human beings, which its existence we shouldn't deny, and hopefully not a tool I would use to bring upon His wrath on me and everything and everyone I care for.

Just sharing my 2cents

Cheers :D :D

p/s – I do wish of marrying someone who could live without facebook. Last thing I want is our private life to be posted on a frequent basis.

p/p/s – … is that p/s necessary? wahaha

Price-less sket~ :D :D

Assalamualaikum J

I was driving back from Penang to KB when I saw, well, not actually saw, but about 2-3 minutes late from an accident in action at Lebuhraya Timur Barat, around Banjaran Titiwangsa. Smoke rose from the scene which involved a Waja and a motorcycle. I don’t think anyone survived that event. The traffic stalled for about ½ an hour or so and I kept thinking about how devastating the accident was.

Just after passing the scene, I was still thinking about the accident, for the next 5 minutes. After that my attention was back on the road (which what I was supposed to do as a driver). That lead me thinking of how insignificant we are. We think our lives worth everything the sky and the earth can throw at us, but we tend to forget that the world won’t stop spinning, the Sun won’t explode, and even businesses won’t close their deals just because we’re no longer functioning as a human being. But we love to think that we’re the most significant beings and sometimes belittle others just because we see them not as our equals.

Death is a sarcastic comedy. We appreciate the fact that we’ll die someday. We know that we’re mortals. And we even know our average lifespans. But crucial yet very important information held from us is when and how are we going to face our destiny. If life is an equation, death is its constant. It’s no use living out life if we don’t know the crucial constant that matters. We can only guess from experience, we can only guess from symptoms but we cannot be so sure of the exact date or exact event that will lead to our own destruction.

Is what we’re doing right now worth it? If so, how can we be so sure? Have we looked at others who seem very confident with their way of life which we don’t share the same view with? Have we compared with others not the message we’re holding but the actions we’re taking when we firmly believe that we’re holding the truth? Is what we’re doing really worth it?

As someone who believes that there’ll be time of resurrection, I sometimes see life as a cruel drama. “You follow us, or you’ll be condemned to eternity”. When I look at others who share the same view as me but not necessarily the same direction, the rule of the game looks similar.

People might say I should be pitied for not able to make my own decision or even question the road I’m taking. To me, one of the greatest gifts given by the Almighty is the ability to think, the ability to choose right from wrong. The ability and courage to question our way of life before it’s too late. Answers come from questions. We have passed the period when we’re supposed to follow without fully understanding. At the end of the day, we’re responsible for our actions. At the end of the day, we’re responsible for the road we took, and we should use the time given to find out whether what we’re doing is worth our life, before it’s too late.

From dust to dust, and we are surely one heck of an arrogant type of dust.

Just sharing my 2cents.

Cheers :D :D

Elslinkus Springus Sket~ :D :D

Assalamualaikum J

Why teaching is one of the most rewarding profession? (For those who’re going to be teachers or are already in this profession or even those who think about being a teacher)

As an untrained teacher for about 7 months now, I found teaching to be a very satisfying job there is. You’re totally in control of your class. You are allowed to shape the students as you please (and with responsibility). You can ‘install’ your ideology to your students. You have people who would listen to your every words and that makes you responsible heavily for every words you utter. You can do anything and sometimes I do ‘abuse’ those privileges. Well, it’s hard to resist the temptation, haha.

For example, I taught my students about waves this week. I wrote on the white board the device I used to demonstrate the topic I was teaching that day. I wrote ‘Elslinkus Springus’ and I asked them to say it out loud, and they did. “Elslinkus Springus!!” they said confidently (perhaps they trust their teacher won’t trick them in any way..wahahaha). I promise you, if you’re their teacher that day, you won’t be able to hold your laugh when you make your students shout ‘Elslinkus Springus’ while what you showed them was a slinky spring.

Students, your innocence marvels me :D!

Teaching rocks :D :D

p/s – I did tell the students afterwards that the thing I was holding was a slinky spring and we had a good laugh :D

slinky spring aka elslinkus springus :p

Relativity of Life :D :D

Assalamualaikum :)

‘Relative’ is basically a word we use to compare things. For example the theory of relativity which assert the idea that time and space are both non-absolute concept. In other words, they’re relative concept which depends on the observer’s frame of reference. Find it’s hard to imagine? Let’s take a look at another example.

Example 2:
For those who’re born in the same era with me, Dragon Ball used to be a thing of obsession. I used to remember that from this comic I learnt that enemies can be friends when they face a common enemy. Somehow I found it hard to accept this way of thinking when the people you’re fighting with your lives all of a sudden become your comrades. Evil in this comic is relative. When the person is on your side, he/she is a peace defender, but when there’re people who oppose you, then voila, there you are, you had evils to fight with.

So what is enemy then? To me an enemy is a person or a group of people or organization or whatever which their aim or mission or vision is different than ours. They’re not just different, they threat the very existence of our lives, the threat to our survival (be it politics, economics etc.). The question is, just because their ideology might seem different or parasitic even, do we have the right to eliminate them? What makes us superior in term of existence? Just because we’re here before they do?

Remember what Muhammad PBUH did to the Meccans. Muhammad PBUH was born in a society where worshipping idols were their way of life. When Muhammad PBUH arrived he suggested a way of life which was different from what the Meccans used to. He even destroyed the idols of the Meccans when He and His army of Muslims entered Kaaba in ‘Fathul Makkah’. As a Muslim we see this as a victory where Islam has finally been accepted in Mecca. That’s it, nothing more or nothing less to talk or think about. When a Muslim army conquered a nation, we said it’s good because the light of Islam is spreading.

Let’s have this situation for a change.
We were conquered by the Portuguese, English and Japanese. We learnt from our history one of the main reasons for Portuguese conquest of Malacca was driven by religion. They saw this as a campaign for their ‘White Man’s Burden’ obligation. We saw this as a threat which they come to destroy our society and destroy our system of beliefs. On one side, the people involved see their acts as righteous, on the other hand (victim’s POV) they saw this as evils which need to be driven out. See how one event can be both evil and righteous at the same time. The question is which of the views is the right one? Are our views largely influenced by who do the action rather than whether the action itself ethical no matter who the doers are.

The scenario for the question above is simple. Just imagine if we are living in a peaceful country govern by non-Muslims. If there is an army from a Muslim country advancing towards our capital, with what they claim to spread Islam towards our nation. Where our loyalty would lies? Are we going to defend our motherland, or to join the army and become a traitor to our motherland and our people? Just because the advancing armies were Muslims, do we blindly follow them?

Even the word Muslims has to be redefined. Who is a Muslim? The person who practices Islam. Next question, what version of Islam? What are you talking about, there’s only one version of Islam. I’d say how naïve. If not naïve I’d say how hypocritical. We say there’s only one version of Islam, our version. A Shiite for example would say their version of Islam is the truth. Some other groups would say the same. Yet we still think that there’s only one Islam, even though we somehow acknowledge the other groups of version of Islam which doesn’t confirm with our beliefs also as Muslims. And we claim there’s only 1 Islam, and 1 Ummah. Remember relativity, now, with relative to the non-Muslims, they would say Islam is not 1. How can we blame them as we’re the one who is closing one eye to this issue?

What’s the value of Islam that we have today, that we claim and hope to be our savior in the hereafter? How long have it been since Muhammad PBUH died? How can we be sure that our version of Islam is The One when Islam came to us not from the mouth of Muhammad PBUH himself? Even if the version of Islam when it came to us is The One, how can we be so sure that the same version is passed down for how many generations till it reached us? From what I can see, we’re trained to be bigots. Not to use Islam that inherited to us as a stepping stone to find the truth rather we believe without proper understandings that we’re holding the truth and the others are not, and we’re willing to die for that. What if we’re to be awoken after our death that we’ve been barking up the wrong tree? How many of us tried to find out whether what we have today is the truth? How many of us are willing to sacrifice everything and anything to defend what we belief is the truth, without really finding out whether our version of the truth is the truth? I find the latter to be the most popular.

Why I keep on writing this kind of topic. Honestly I’m frustrated with the situations of Islam today. People are more interested in finding out who are not ‘guided’ by searching for people who are different from them. People nowadays also interested in advertising their ibadah while little that they realized, they’re doing the ibadah not solely for Allah, but for people to see and to judge. Isn’t this a type of syirik? Doing your ibadah for other than Allah (we can surely debate on this, but I have little mood on doing so). Suggesting to people of how good we’re by advertising our limited knowledge of Islam. Islam supposed to elevate our position in the society, but lots of us today use Islam as a stepping stone to gain status in our society. How low can we be? Seriously, how low can we be? I look high to Islam. To me Islam is a sacred garden which shouldn’t be tainted, like a forest reserve, Islam should be left as it is. Islam is politics, Islam is culture, Islam is everything. What I see now, Islam is influenced by politics, Islam is influenced by cultures, Islam is influenced by everything. After knowing lots of people who claim to know Islam, I find it hard to believe those who claim to know Islam. After seeing people interpret Islam as they see fit, I find it hard to believe those who interpret Islam. After seeing the true colour of people who seemed to be ideal Muslims, or those who advertise themselves as good Muslims, I find it hard to not being critical to those who seemed to be Islamic. Am I writing gibberish? Maybe. Am I spouting nonsense? Up to you. This is what I think, and this is what I feel.

Cheers :D :D
Just sharing my 2 cents

p/s – teaching rocks!! :D :D

What’s Wrong? :D :D

Assalamualaikum,

I think we learn with every breath we take in. We are becoming more mature with every step we take, and hopefully becoming wiser as we grow older. What an introduction..hahaha

What is wrong?

For the sake of writing this topic, I define wrong as something not right. What is right then? Is right objective? Can one’s right be others’ wrong? Can both right and wrong exist together at the same time?

I brought some students for a trip last week, and as usual, I talked to them, provoke their thoughts and sometimes even belittle their ideas, just to see how they would react. I never realized the significance of my jokes until just now. They’re 3 students in my car, all of them Kelantanese. I told them that Kelantanese cannot read well. Heck, they cannot read at all, and they denied that. Well I gave them one example, “how do you pronounce T.U.M.P.A.T.” I asked. One of them instinctively answered my question without much thought, “Tupak”, she said. Gotcha! And I gave one example after another and we had good laughs.

Well while driving to my friend’s wedding today, I gave this a little thought. What if the ‘standard’ BM spelled those words wrongly? It’s their language after all, and the ‘standard’ spellings came long after the words existed (another good topic to discuss..hehe) and I arrogantly said that Kelantanese cannot read, while maybe the spelling is not right to begin with.

Or maybe the spellings are right, and the pronunciations are correct. It’s how they pronounce those words, and just because the way I pronounce them different doesn’t make their pronunciations wrong. Maybe we both right though the way I was raised, the pronunciations they made were not. That’s what I meant with both right and wrong coexists. Does that mean that right and wrong are not objective after all? The things we perceive as right and wrong might as well relative. It all depends on the eye of the beholder. It all depends, on the values they’re raised with. It’s not at all fixed.

Then, why should we impose the things we believe as the truth to others. Why do we ignorantly without any thoughts laugh at others when their values seem different than us? For example, we Muslims cannot eat pork. Pork and Muslims are like nemesis. We don’t eat pork, we don’t want to touch pork, and we don’t want to have anything to do with pork. We even offended when we are related in any way with pork. When someone gave us pork as a gift, we say that’s an insult towards Islam as a whole (tho it’s not that relevant). The thing is it’s us who see pork as something that needs to be distanced with. It’s our culture, and we need people to understand and respect that culture. Fair enough.

Then why do we freely insult others’ beliefs? For instance, we have no problem, no guilt whatsoever when we make jokes about Hindus don’t eat meat. Do we really care why they cannot do things we can? We don’t even know why they don’t eat meat. We don’t even care. It’s not our problem. Not affecting our lives.

Guess what, that’s what others thought about our belief. They don’t give a damn. We expect them to know every single thing about us, things that might offend us, but do we care to do the same? We are an arrogant bunch. We think we hold the Ultimate Truth that others’ values are not to be treated as we wish others would do to us. We don’t even dare to question the validity of our faith we inherit from our forefathers, yet we rubbish others’ belief.

I don’t know why my writings lately would somehow converge towards this topic. Back to the right-wrong thingy.

People are afraid to express their ideas because they have no confidence of what they’re going to say. We also are afraid of others saying what we’re saying is wrong. What can we do? Well, we can start from us. Treat people as we want others to treat us. In a discussion, listen to what the others are saying. And by listening I meant, LISTEN. Itching to ditch what they’re saying because you know that’s wrong, or because it’s different from what you think? Be patient. Talk politely after the other party has finished what they’re saying, because we might be as wrong or as right as what the others are saying. When this respect needs is fulfilled, people can express their views freely and openly. We can’t change others, this should all start with us. We should practice to create this environment.

Well then, what can we do when others don’t give the same respect we gave them? One way is to be open to criticism (specially dedicated to me). We cannot be corrected if we don’t do anything wrong. To be corrected, we must do something wrong first. And to do wrong, or to confirm whether what we have is right, it needs bravery. Listen to others and be open to criticism. Easier said than done. Good luck!

Just sharing my (seramas/25) :D :D

p/s – good luck?wahaha, my writings sure is getting weirder.